Material handing rules, customer requirements, storage constraints, and efficiency, place complex demands on the modern warehouse. Warehouse management systems enable a warehouse to dispatch tasks and manage inventory. Currently many decisions within a warehouse, however, are left for an operator and/or supervisor to perform, demanding a high degree of training, but still yielding sub-optimal results and occasionally, serious mistakes.
A common warehouse management system 10 is illustrated in FIG. 1. The system has a number of system defined rules 20. The rules execution function 40 uses the attributes of a specific request 30 and an applicable system defined rule to manipulate a database 50 containing such information as quantity of inventory, location of inventory, etc. The warehouse management system 10 then provides the user with a solution 60. For example, a particular item may have just been received. The user can enter the description of the item, and the warehouse management system will tell the user where current stock of the same item is located, so that the new quantity can be added to the existing quantity in the same location.
Effectiveness can be increased by customizing the warehouse management system in accordance with the users specific business, processes, and needs. Customization in traditional systems entails going back to the software vendor or a third party, to make modifications to the system defined rules and or adding additional rules to model processes of the specific user. However such customization results in increased systems costs, difficulty in upgrading, and may also make it difficult for the user to change their area or way of business in response to changing customer needs.